No Shortcut to Change: An Unlikely Path to a More Gender Equitable World

Kara Ellerby

Abstract

Gender equality has become a central aspect of global governance and development in the twenty-first century. States increasingly promote women in government, ensure women’s economic rights, and protect women from violence, all in the name of creating a more gender-equitable world. This book, however, challenges the idea that such efforts to include more women can actually promote gender equality. Arguing instead that there is a global “add gender and stir” campaign, in which women and gender have become synonymous, this book interrogates why this campaign has not had a greater global impact. ... More

Gender equality has become a central aspect of global governance and development in the twenty-first century. States increasingly promote women in government, ensure women’s economic rights, and protect women from violence, all in the name of creating a more gender-equitable world. This book, however, challenges the idea that such efforts to include more women can actually promote gender equality. Arguing instead that there is a global “add gender and stir” campaign, in which women and gender have become synonymous, this book interrogates why this campaign has not had a greater global impact. Introducing women’s inclusion as an alternative framing to gender equality, this book delves into the data and research on policies and practices promoting women in public over the last forty years. What emerges is a liberal feminist movement to add women to male-dominated institutions that has done little to challenge binary gender—understood as patterns of masculinities and femininities—and often reinforces it instead. Chapters focus on policies and practices in three areas, including promoting women’s participation in government, increasing women’s economic rights, and protecting women from violence. The book uses “analytical gender” to explain why women’s inclusion is not more emancipatory—exploring how poor implementation, informal practices, gender binaries, and intersectionality remain key issues across all efforts of women’s inclusion. Ultimately all of these efforts have been co-opted by global neoliberal institutions in troubling ways, often reinforcing gender differences rather than challenging them.